painting: Bruce Lhuillier

Virgo and Pisces are the healers of the Zodiac. Maybe Virgo is the ‘doctor’, the diagnostician, the one who plans the course of healing. Pisces seems to be the ‘nurse’, the one who provides compassionate care. Pisces is prominent in the charts of nurses, and Virgo with the charts of those who are the primary healer. At this full Moon, they are both at zero degree, the gate, the entry to the signs. As always they form an axis, which spans the chart, creating a bridge between the two signs. Lunar nodes in Virgo and Pisces are very common in healers, both allopathic and alternative. I chose the painting of the megalith above, because there is an element of healing which can only be found in nature, and when I enter the woods and come face to face with a message as clear as this one, I know that healing will take place. Dowsers say that megaliths marks underground water patterns, spirals, and turns in the current, places of healing for ancient people, and for us as well.

Chiron is also about to begin a journey into a new sign, Aries. Chiron is the marker for an indelible wound in our life, a wound which can never be healed, but which provides us with the healing knowledge to help others. Those born with Chiron in Aries (1968-1977 and 2018-2027) treat their wounds with impatience. They tend to shake off the pain they feel, much like warriors, the sign of Aries. 1968-77 was a turbulent period, with very little adult attendance to the wounds of children born during this time of huge transitions. Children born with this Chiron, had to take care of themselves and perhaps other children around them. They are like combat medics, who learned they must quickly bind up wounds, and make choices about who can survive.

photo: Bruce Lhuillier

The Sabian Symbol for this degree of Chiron in Aries, is mysterious: A WOMAN JUST RISEN FROM THE SEA. A SEAL IS EMBRACING HER. Impulse to be. Chiron occupies the degree which begins the journey of the zodiac, the degree of the Spring Equinox. In this powerful location he is entirely focused on the evolution of the planet’s consciousness. Like the image above, we are part, fish, part beast, part winged creature. We live in the waters of the unconscious, Pisces, and struggle to analyze where we are and where we have come from, Virgo.

photo: Bruce Lhuillier

Virgo is ‘ruled’ by Mercury, Hermes, he who is always moving about in our heads and swiftly travels with the Sun. At this moment of the full Moon, Mercury is a close companion to Neptune, one of the rulers of Pisces. Neptune pulls our rational impulse under water. Here we dream, experience visions, and forget Virgo’s concerns.Hermes (Mercury) was the dream master of the ancient world. Neptune is an entirely different psychopomp. My dreams have been vivid and memorable over the last few days as this combination of Pisces/Virgo, Mercury/Neptune has moved into position.

photo: Sarah Fuhro

A few days ago I visited the Peabody Museum in Cambridge, and was fascinated with strange brass rings from Liberia, called Nitien. Made by the Kru and Grebo people, found in creeks, rivers and lagoons, they are water spirits or ‘Gods of water’. Nitien have the ability to stop wars, found villages, heal the sick and guarantee fertility. They are also able to catch people crossing streams. The Nitien live in the water but can be caught and brought into the village, where they serve as protector or guardians. These rings represent this moment of time to me, this full Moon in Virgo. We are caught up with the illness to our waters and seas. Perhaps at this full Moon moment we can walk under the beams of the Virgo Moon/Pisces Sun axis to ask for the Nitien energy to heal us, to heal the waters and the seas of Pisces. Chiron as he stands at the gate of Aries, offers us the potential of new forms of consciousness. On Tuesday, 19th of February, take a moment to feel the ‘embrace of the seal.’

photo: Robert Fuhro

The Wisdom Tradition evolved over the centuries to address our deepest human needs. Sarah Fuhro is a practitioner of its many forms; including Astrology, Tarot, Flower Essences and Druidry. For an appointment call 508 652 9880 or email her at sarahfuhro@gmail.com. In addition to personal consultations, Sarah teaches workshops and private classes, offering both clients and students knowledge powerfully rooted in the past, presented in the language of the present.

photo: Bruce Lhuillier

Perhaps you already feel the unsteady motion of this moment. The whirling energy of eclipse season can be delicious or overwhelming. Either way, you can still celebrate, Leo style. Sometimes we just need to rock and roll with the waves of time and space. After all, nothing is permanent, which is probably a good thing. But a party on a houseboat has two kinds of motion, the water beneath our feet and the joyous human energy of a special occasion under the stars. ‘Party on a Houseboat’ is the Sabian Symbol for the new Moon on Saturday, which will eclipse the Sun. You have to live in far northern lands to see this one, but, as always, the energy of the solar eclipse is an opportunity for a fresh start.

And we are in the middle of the Perseid meteor shower, another reason to look up from the ‘party on the houseboat’ into the summer night sky. If we are sensitive to all this movement, there are many ways to keep our balance. The Two of Swords is one way:

By sheer force of will and the discipline of the sword, she holds the moment still. Yet the tiny crescent Moon says this will be a very short exercise, her blindfold keeps her from disorientation, and she must remain seated to keep her balance.

Featured in this new Moon and eclipse is an opposition between the lovely Venus in her sign of balance (Libra), and the warrior version of Chiron in Aries. Can love only be learned through heartbreak as pictured in the Three of Swords? This final eclipse of the year sets in motion a heart opening with Venus in Libra and Chiron in Aries. Leo rules the heart as well as the spine. Aries rules the head. All this Leo eclipse energy might release through the opposition between these two points….

I felt some of that Chiron healing recently after listening to an interview with novelist and philosopher Alain de Botton. I feel better about my imperfect marriage, my flawed attempts to be a good parent, and my lackadaisical career. Perhaps he’s right: we’re here to learn from all of these heartfelt attempts rather than to perfect them. The dance on the houseboat continues, and we can participate as in the Two of Pentacles or hold tight as in the Two of Swords.

” Love is a painful, poignant, touching attempt by two flawed individuals to try and meet each other’s needs in situations of gross uncertainty and ignorance about who they are and who the other person is, but we’re going to do our best…. the acceptance of ourselves as flawed creatures seems to me what love really is. Love is at its most necessary when we are weak, when we feel incomplete, and we must show love to one another at those points.” https://onbeing.org/programs/alain-de-botton-the-true-hard-work-of-love-and-relationships-feb2017/

The wisdom of the Tarot pictures the moment of the Alchemical marriage under the sign of the caduceus and the winged Lion’s head. Caduceus is the wand of Mercury, and yes, at this moment, Mercury is in Leo within a few degrees of Sun and Moon in Leo, the Lion. This card speaks of love between two people, or an internal moment when a painful opposition is accepted in wholeness. Clearly these lovers are taking part in a sacred ritual of healing.

Leo is the Sun’s happiest location. Yet this is at a time of year when the Sun in the Northern Hemisphere is headed South, and we who live here are losing daylight hours. Leo is the sign of theatre, actors, the heart and grand gestures. It’s the sign on my Ascendant, my soul’s entry point. People with a lot of Leo energy in their chart struggle between the desire to manifest their soul’s fire, and to find a way to channel that energy without singeing themselves or those around them. The ego needs to be acknowledged and then released.

Many powerful planets line up to participate in this moment. We won’t see the new Moon, and most of us won’t see the eclipse of the Sun created by the Moon’s shadow. Yet it takes place in each of us. Don’t be afraid to rock the boat as you dance under the stars.

Keeping our Ancient Wisdom Alive

The Wisdom Tradition evolved over the centuries to address our deepest human needs. Sarah Fuhro is a practitioner of its many forms; including Astrology, Tarot, Flower Essences and Druidry. For an appointment call 508 652 9880 or email her at sarahfuhro@gmail.com. In addition to personal consultations, Sarah teaches workshops and private classes, offering both clients and students knowledge powerfully rooted in the past, presented in the language of the present.

A few days ago, a client said: I’m done with the fears I brought with me from other lifetimes, when I was punished for my knowledge of healing and magic. I’m going to pursue my studies and offer my talents and knowledge to other people.

What she was feeling, tells the story of this full Moon and eclipse period. The Sun in Leo and the Moon in Aquarius, give us the courage of Leo and the vision of Aquarius to leave old stories behind and launch new projects without listening to the fear which might devastate us at other times. With full knowledge of our traumas from the past we can push past what holds us back from expressing what we came here to manifest.

It’s an eclipse! Total! No view from North America because the eclipse happens before we see Moonrise, but the power of an eclipse lies beyond what is visible. It is an opportunity to feel the immensity of our connection to earth and sky. With each full Moon we are stretched between perception (the Sun) and feeling (the Moon).

photo: Bruce Lhuillier

The Sun is in the sign he loves the most, LEO! We celebrate our Lion, solar nature! How wonderful to be alive, to have the Sun in us, and and shining on our back. But the full Moon always takes place when the Sun has set, when the Moon reflects the Sun back to us in night darkness. At a lunar eclipse, a mysterious force, a demon, a dragon, devours the Moon bit by bit, and then slowly releases her. How is it possible that the shadow cast by our planet, the earth darkens the Moon at her brightest moment? And what does this tell us about the fears we project outward on to the future?

photo: Robert Fuhro

The Moon is in the sign of Aquarius, his realm is our place in community! Aquarius is grey, maybe pearly, androgynous, neither male nor female. Although the constellation Aquarius is an Air sign, he pours water from a huge urn and lives in a very wet part of the sky, called ‘the Sea.’ His neighbors are Pisces, the fish, Capricorn, the sea goat, Delphinus, the dolphin, Hydra the water spirit. For people who live in areas of the earth with a wet season and a dry season, Aquarius is a gift of life, or a disaster.

photo: Bruce Lhuillier

Aquarius rules our ankles, Leo the heart and spine. Ankles give our bodies mobility and balance, the heart and spine are life itself. At this moment 4:20 pm July 27; full Moon, eclipse, Mars is reversing into the Moon’s degree. Will he knock my Moon off balance, or give me the energy to push into the future, the realm of Aquarius? The old and new rulers of Aquarius: Saturn and Uranus are woven into the tapestry of this moment. Saturn represents solid manifestation. Uranus is about new forms of communication and energy. Together they form an Earth trine with each other. If they work together, is there hope for the future of the earth? This is a personal question for each of us!

Sculpture: Mother Earth, Vicki Gunther https://www.vickigunter.com/

This full Moon/eclipse takes place on an intense degree of my natal chart. Perhaps this is true for you as well. I feel challenged to express what lies hidden and feels fearful. I call on Chiron as healer and teacher of the underworld to help me step forward, I call on Leo Sun to light my way, I call on Aquarius Moon with his Martian companion to show me the map to my journey. As for Uranus, who challenges the full Moon from his position in the sign of Taurus, Uranus demands authenticity, and loves to surprise me at every turn in the road.

‘A veiled prophet speaks, seized by the power of a god.’

photo: Bruce Lhuillier

This is the Sabian Symbol for the degree of the Capricorn full Moon. Who is the ‘veiled prophet,’ and which god is speaking? Perhaps the god is Saturn, one degree away from the Moon. Saturn’s degree image: ‘ten logs lie under an archway leading to darker woods.’

photo: Bruce Lhuillier

He invites us into the darkness of the woods at midnight when the Moon will be exactly full (Wednesday in the Eastern zone of the United States). We need that darkness in order to fully experience the light of the Moon!

photo: Virginia McEachern

Saturn is very comfortable in Capricorn. The Moon in Capricorn does not feel at home, because the sign, which she rules is Cancer, on the opposite side of the chart. She is out of her ‘element, ‘ alone with Saturn, and to further the discomfort, she is partially eclipsed. The chart has many dramatic possibilities.

The degree of the Sun has this beautiful image: ‘Two nature spirits dancing under the moonlight’! And Saturn’s degree: ‘Ten logs lie under an archway leading to dark woods,’says we must go deeper to find the magical circle where the spirit dance takes place.

photo: Bruce Lhuillier

Capricorn, where the Moon is in her full form this month is an Earth sign. The Earth element is about manifestation, what we experience with the five senses. The symbol for the Earth element is a pentacle, held in the star at the heart of an apple, the pattern of the cycle of Venus. The pentacle is also a reminder that that there are four elements and spirit. And the pentacle is a reminder of our human form. We are made of the five elements and five senses.

https://www.pinterest.ie/pin/269160515204178002/

Most occult traditions insist on our participation in the earth dance. To be a magician is to be involved in the everyday work of this planet. Before we can step deeper into the forest under the full Moon at midnight, we must attend to the Capricorn business of earning a living in some form. We have to wash the dishes, and live with our family and community in a responsible way. We are under the rules of Saturn on this planet, but he keeps his promise: Manifestation of your desire awaits the completion of the task you have undertaken.

photo: Bruce Lhuillier

Chiron is also in the mix of this chart. He will heal our wounds, if we accept our contradictions. We are strong and vulnerable, angry and loving, responsible and ready to run from what we know is required of us. Chiron in Aries is the wounded warrior. He might be our impulse to seek excitement rather than the focused attention on our task we have pledged through Saturn.

photo: Bruce Lhuillier

And I cannot ignore the role of Uranus, the revolutionary, the unexpected, the disrupter and transformer. He is at a degree in Taurus, which connects him to the Moon and Saturn. They are all in earth signs, but he is the god who strikes from the sky. His Sabian Symbol is ‘an electrical storm.’

photo: Robert Fuhro

A full Moon with everything…a message from a god through a veiled prophet, nature spirits to be found if we go deeper into the dark woods and just as we are ready to grasp this promise of manifestation, an electrical storm!

This full Moon and this astrology chart belong to the whole world. The pain inflicted on refugees fleeing terror only to have their children snatched away and lost, is not an isolated event. Each of us has a veiled prophet within who speaks truth to us, so that we can go deeper into darkness and find the route to actions, which will manifest in justice and kindness.

In each of us there is a fiery furnace. It is the place of transformation, the heart. The element of transformation is Fire. This Sagittarius full Moon gives the gift of that fire. What may have been burning embers is now a roaring blaze. Alchemy, the ancient art and science of transformation was never without the action of fire. Sagittarius is a sign associated with the transformation of the spirit through fire and joy. In the Tarot card, Temperance, which corresponds to Sagittarius, the angel Michael, mixes essence of old and new to create an alchemical state, which has no further need for ego.

The story of the Fiery Furnace in the Book of Daniel tells a tale of the three Jewish ‘children’ who would not worship the Statue of Gold erected by the King of Babylon. The three, including the prophet Daniel were flung into a fiery furnace and the heat turned up, yet they remained untouched by the flames and a fourth figure was seen in their midst.

All this suggests the nature of this moment of Full Moon, when Moon, Chiron and the North Node are arranged in a fiery triangle, a Wheel of Flame.

Healing (Chiron) and evolution (the North Node) is the message of this configuration of the Fire Signs. It seems perfectly illustrated by the Sabian Symbol for the degree of the Moon, ‘a Mother leads her small child, step by step up a steep stairway.’

We are here to help each other with healing and transformation, which can bind up the wounds in the human condition and our relationship to the Earth. Evolution into a new form of humanity can only be accomplished through group intention rather than the old way of attempting to progress one soul at a time.

photo: Bruce Lhuillier

Sagittarius is open to spiritual adventures and new territory, travel, optimism, and an open embrace of diversity. This is a full Moon of possibility, curiosity and hunger, greater than our fear which keeps us locked in old ways. Sagittarius is a free spirit, open to the impulse of the fiery furnace of the heart. In the photograph above there is a chain across the bottom of the staircase, an impediment to those who would be held back, but no real barrier to any who are determined to explore those stairs.

It’s strange I could not find images of a woman ascending a staircase, only descending!

I found a painting by Burne-Jones of musicians descending a winding staircase.

There is Marcel Duchamp’s Nude Descending a Staircase:

And Rembrandt shows a woman with a small child, but also descending the stairs:

What does it take to imagine a woman ascending the stairs? With the Sabian Symbol of a woman, her child and the step by step ascent of a steep staircase, we can look up to the Moon and imagine ourselves climbing a golden ladder to reach her. We can be like Jacob as he slept, homesick in the desert, he saw the angels ascending and descending a golden ladder. I don’t like to think that ascending is somehow better than descending, but like the waxing and waning of the Moon, there must be equal appreciation for the special gifts of both!

William Blake, Jacob’s Dream

This full Moon and Mars point to Venus in the sign of Cancer. Perhaps she is the mother of the small child in us, ready to climb the next step in a steep staircase. Cancer is the Moon’s sign, and opens the door to the season of summer. Yet even as Cancer marks the highest point in the Sun’s journey North, it is also the turning point to Sun’s return South, and the slow growth toward darkness for our hemisphere.

Where is the Sun in this moment of opposition to the Moon? He has a Sabian Symbol very connected to Sagittarius: A quiver full of arrows! Sagittarius is the archer in the sky, the centaur with drawn bow. We are given the gift of potential. Will the arrow find its mark or stay in the quiver?

Artemisia, the goddess of the Moon is often shown with bow and arrow. She is a hunter, and a full Moon light’s the hunter’s way to prey. Her arrows are the thoughts, which pierce the darkness, and invite us to dance under the full Moon! In Moonlight we see the world in a new way. Let this full Moon open your heart and mind to a new version of reality.

Like this:

photo: Robert Fuhro

‘Me ‘n’ You, Me ‘n’ You, Me ‘n You,’ I hear Cardinals call as the full Moon in Libra shines on spring hopes! This full Moon is always about the self and the other. The ‘self’ is the Sun in Aries. He’s surrounded by the healing presence of Chiron, the physician, and the communicator, Mercury. But the ‘other,’ the Moon in Libra floats alone on the opposite side of the chart, rising as the Sun sets.

photo: Bruce Lhuillier

Aries is the joy of existence, of new beginning, of sexual exuberance, and the spring energy that pours through every fiber of our body.

photo: Bruce Lhuillier

Libra is the balance, the knowledge of payment due, of concern for others, which tempers Aries at the full Moon.

photo: Bruce Lhuillier

Aries demands we know who we are. Libra insists there are others as well. The Capricorn Mars and Capricorn Saturn say we can build something long lasting from the tension between these two powerful impulses.

This is the full Moon, which sets the date for Easter and Passover. As I walk through the spring woods and meadows, I feel the tremendous surge of creativity and imagination, which comes from the energy of this moment.

photo: Sarah Fuhro

Venus, the Lady of Love and all green things has just entered the sign of Taurus where she rules with delicious abandon. It is she who leaves a green footprint on the land wherever she walks.

photo: Bruce Lhuillier

Apple Star Sarah Fuhro

Somewhere in the apple

we call the human heart,

in the soft place,

next to the crisp place,

is a tiny star,

a star, which is the start,

of a long and ancient love story.

This is the love of magic

of Green Lady Venus,

and her pentacle step,

which touches

upon the spring soil,

which opens to the sky

above her mantle.

What will come from this joyous combination of Aries and Libra in your life? The Creativity of the moment awaits your imagination! Fiery energy and patient balance is the theme as you manifest your spring growth.

photo: Bruce Lhuillier

With this new Moon in Pisces we experience the end (Pisces) and the beginning (Aries). The door closes on one cycle, opens to another. Water and fire are everywhere. Like all astrology charts, this new Moon pattern lays out a cosmic message, a sentence made of planets, and the space between them, which can sooth us or spur us on.

We live on a planet of dark and light, night and day. As magicians we are taught to embrace polarity and then release it. Each sign of the Zodiac lies next to one of deep contrast. This way we are constantly shown one side of things, and then the other. To be able to dance with both feet to this drumbeat is a reason to study astrology! And the best teacher of astrology, of cycles and polarity is the Moon.

photo: Bruce Lhuillier Peabody Essex Museum

Born with the Moon in Cancer, the Lady’s home sign, I measure everything with her divining rod. I travel in her boat.

Journey by Water Sarah Fuhro

At night I ride my coracle,

to the dark shore, silver Moon

of the tree filled island,

where I will meet my dreams.

The last notes of twilight

play out, as I approach,

push myself forward,

in my round leather boat,

into the slender reeds,

the dark water washed shore.

I put aside the slender pole

no further use for rudder, for oar.

First I lower my human foot

into the cold wet,

sharp fanged swamp,

in a moment,

pause to recollect:

I carry with me, fish shoes,

silver scaled, soft as silk.

With these I know myself,

amphibious, and supple!

Both feet touch bottom,

and I push my coracle to shore.

And you, who are also the Moon’s child, and the child of this dark and light planet, where will you be at this new Moon moment? Will you feel that shift from the dark Moon to the seed of new light?

The last few degrees of Pisces are momentous in occult tradition. Take this opportunity to truly feel: ‘in the end is the beginning and in the beginning is the end.’ We can be shaken by the sense of walking a swaying bridge over a deep gorge, or a bridge between two seasons, one wet, one fiery.

photo: Robert Fuhro Erving, Massachusetts

I think the Bridge in this chart is Chiron. He is at 28° degrees of Pisces and has a most beautiful symbol from this degree. ‘Light breaking into many colors as it passes through a prism.’ Chiron is the wound we cannot heal in our chart, but the wound is the way we learn to heal others. In this picture of him he carries a youth, the Life Force, Aries on his back. This is a good illustration of this chart which is a link between Pisces, the end of the of the Zodiacal year, and Aries, the fiery introduction to Spring and new energy.

photo: Bruce Lhuillier John Singer Sargent mural in the Boston Public Library

In this image of Chiron there is a hint of Sagittarius, the centaur, for Chiron was a centaur. It’s not surprising that Mars, the embodiment of the Life Force is in Sagittarius square to Chiron, giving a hot spur to this watery moment in time. His degree represents ‘Personalized Worship.’ It is the act of courage when we find our own way to connect to spirit.

Llewelyn Tarot Temperance Card

Jupiter, who rules Sagittarius is also a connected to the action in this chart. From Scorpio, he makes a water connection to Moon, Sun, Chiron in Pisces and pressures Uranus and Eris in their location of fire. As a centaur, Sagittarius is related to Chiron. The connection of man and beast, man as part of the animal kingdom, is beautifully illustrated in this card, with overtones of Pisces and Neptune. Pisces is the healing water of the Zodiac.

photo: Robert Fuhro Ravens in the sky

Give this moment in time your attention. We enter the Celtic Moon of Alder on this day. There is potential for the magic of the Alder to open your eyes to something you might want to manifest. Alder is the wood of wet places, yet strong enough to keep the city of Venice above water! It is the Month of Bran, the Raven, who made himself a bridge, between Ireland and Britain. This Pisces new Moon is the link between Water, and Fire, between the last days of Pisces and the moment of the spring equinox when the Sun moves into the sign of Aries. Stay between seasons, between signs of the Zodiac, and listen to the prophecies of that magical bird the raven.

Keeping our Ancient Wisdom Alive

The Wisdom Tradition evolved over the centuries to address our deepest human needs. Sarah Fuhro is a practitioner of its many forms; including Astrology, Tarot, Flower Essences and Druidry. In addition to personal consultations, Sarah teaches workshops and private classes, offering both clients and students knowledge powerfully rooted in the past, presented in the language of the present. To learn more, please visit www.sarahfuhro.com.